Sculpting Light - A Solo Exhibition by Tim Rawlinson

Tim Rawlinson

Sculpting Light | 2023

Sculpting

Light | 2023

You can view the full online catalogue for this exhibition here

London Glassblowing

62-66 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3UD

+44 (0)207 403 2800

gallery@londonglassblowing.co.uk

@londonglassblowing www.londonglassblowing.co.uk

Images by Ester Segarra, Sylvain Deleu and Alick Cotterill

All artworks are for sale or can be commissioned

Tim Rawlinson

Inner World (Orange)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H20 x W19 x D19 cm

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Sculpting Light, Tim Rawlinson’s first solo exhibition in five years, showcases his exploration of form, colour, and perception. With each piece, Tim invites the viewer to invest time exploring the optical landscapes within the glass. This investment aims to free the viewer from the typical pressures of daily life and to spark imagination.

On a recent family holiday to Cornwall, Tim visited the Barbara Hepworth exhibition, Art and Life. The work proved greatly inspiring to Tim and influenced the development of his ongoing series, Echoes of Light. His new forms embrace more organic and oval shapes. Drawing on Hepworth’s masterful manipulation of negative space, Tim utilises highly polished surfaces to accentuate the interplay between glass, light and form, capturing the dance of light through glass.

These recent developments have led him to experiment with reactive pigments and powders, infusing his works with painterly textures. Triggered by personal memories of childhood cathedral visits and inspired by Marc Chagall’s stained glass windows in Reims Cathedral, he emulates inks and oils floating on the surface of water to create dynamic movements within the colours. Using a small metal hook-like tool, Tim distorts the powdered glass colours while the material is still molten, akin to marbling techniques found in textiles. Their title, Vitreum, derives from the Latin word for glass and reflects their inspiration. Each colourway evokes a different emotion, with blue alluding to a lagoon-like underwater world and yellow pointing to Vesuvius and John Martin’s iconic painting, The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Inner World, Tim’s six-sided sphere pushes the boundaries of perception, presenting spherical forms with mirrored windows that prompt contemplation of interior versus exterior. A reflection on Maurits Cornelis Escher’s style is evident, and the form’s evolution from his Other World showcases Tim’s progressive artistic journey.

A solo show of this scale by a single artist shows immense creativity, diversity and dedication. Alongside his recognisable series and exciting new developments, Tim will also be debuting a brand new and unseen selection of wall panels.

In Tim’s stunning new artworks, light, glass and creativity converge to elicit great fascination. Tim’s work pushes boundaries and invites you to contemplate the ethereal nature of light.

Abi Pooley

Light Sculpture (Yellow / Pink / Blue)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished H36.5 x W25 x D11 cm

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Echoes of Light (Blue / Yellow)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished H25 x W25.5 x D7 cm

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I know you will think I am biased, because not only is Tim Rawlinson my charming and solicitous son-in-law married to our beautiful and talented daughter, Sophie, and the father of our adorable granddaughter, Olive, but he is also one of the fastest rising stars in the International Glass Art firmament.

Truthfully he has already risen in meteoric fashion and his work is in high demand, with shows in major galleries in the US and Europe. This latest collection, created especially for this, his second solo show at London Glassblowing, is his most ambitious and far-reaching to date. It builds on previous successful explorations while covering new ground formally, and in terms of both its technical and aesthetic evolution. His thoughtful researches, together with a courageous experimental approach have resulted in a terrific body of work, of a quality and maturity beyond his (tender) years.

I am jealous!

Peter Layton

Echoes of Light (Yellow / Pink / Blue)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H25 x W25.5 x D7 cm

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Trewyn Light (Yellow / Blue / Pink)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H37 x W23 x D10 cm

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Echoes of Light (Blue / Yellow)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H29.5 x W34 x D14 cm

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Echoes of Light

Echoes of Light has been an ongoing series within my work. Through these pieces, I aim to paint with light, exploiting the transparency of glass to manipulate both colour and form. My new pieces embrace more organic and oval forms, drawing on Barbara Hepworth’s masterful manipulation of negative space. I utilise highly polished surfaces to accentuate the interplay between glass and light, in turn capturing the dance of light through glass.

Tim Rawlinson

Dispersion

Cast glass, cut and polished

H22 x W12.5 x D13 cm

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Freeblown

Oculus

Freeblown glass H30 x W30 x D12 cm

Polaris Planet (Wall Panel)

glass, cut and polished H27 x W27 x D12 cm

Oculus Planet (Wall Panel)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished H31 x W31 x D13 cm Click here to view the collection Click here to view similar pieces

Oculus Ishi

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H27 x W16.5 x D10 cm

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Terra Ishi

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H28 x W18 x D9 cm

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Other World

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H20 x W20 x D20 cm

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Light Wave (Yellow / Blue / Pink)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H18 x W27 x D7.5 cm

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Convex World

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H22 x W21 x D27.5 cm

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Vitreum Blue

Vitreum Blue’s rich colour nods to an underwater scene. My colour application adds a painterly texture to the glass, providing depth and further alluding to an enchanting aquatic world. Using a colour creation technique, much like marbling in textiles, I attempt to capture the essence of movement and fluidity.

Vitreum Blue

glass, cut and polished H29 x W29 x D7.5 cm

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Freeblown

Tim Rawlinson

Hydrozoa

Cast glass, cut and polished

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H21.5 x W16 x D14 cm

Spectrum

Cast glass, cut and polished

H36 x W27 x D17 cm

Essence (Blue / Purple)

Freeblown glass

H17.5 x W19 x D5.5 cm

Essence (Blue / Yellow)

Freeblown glass

H26.5 x W19 x D5.5 cm

Essence (Blue / Orange)

Freeblown glass

H19.5 x W19.5 x D6 cm

Electra (Yellow)

Freeblown glass

H29 x W17 x D10 cm

Vitreum Yellow

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H23.5 x W29 x D10 cm

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The Process

I perceive glass as a magical material that holds light. I work the glass extensively in its cold state through processes of cutting and polishing. This grants me an unparalleled level of control over the glass and allows me to be more analytical in creating my work.

My technique unfolds in the hot shop, where the immediacy of molten glass takes hold. The fluid nature of the glass in this process is miraculous. Here, I can create the large blown ‘blanks’, which are the starting point of my artistic odyssey and serve as a blank canvas awaiting transformation.

Tim Rawlinson

I relish the opportunity to craft my own blown work. This approach offers me infinite possibilities and opens doors for intricate methods of colour application. The act of blowing creates a cavity within the form, a negative space to be explored during the subsequent cutting process.

Since 2015, I have enjoyed working closely with James Devereux. His expertise and superb craftsmanship have been instrumental to the trajectory of my work, allowing it to evolve in both scale and complexity. This would have been impossible without this dynamic, creative relationship.

Sculptural cutting has become my artistic signature. The diamond saw becomes my paintbrush, exposing the refractive and optical qualities concealed within each piece. The extensive surface treatment of the glass yields extraordinary and sometimes unexpected optical effects.

Tim Rawlinson

Essence

Freeblown glass

H20 x W33 x D5 cm

Parallax

Freeblown glass, cut and polished with cane inclusions

H15 x W14 x D30 cm

Tesseract III

Cast glass, cut and polished

H20 x W23 x D20 cm

Eclipse

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H13 x W26 x D10 cm

Echoes of Light (Winner of the People’s Prize at the British Glass Biennale 2022)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

Orange / Blue: H34 x W26 x D14 cm

Yellow / Pink / Blue: H26 x W32 x D13 cm

Parallax (Blue / Yellow)

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

H17 x W25 x D20 cm

Echoes of Light (Pink / Purple)

Freeblown, cut and polished

H32 x W32 x D12 cm

Echoes of Light (Pink / Blue)

Freeblown, cut and polished

H32 x W32 x D10 cm

Echoes of Light

Freeblown glass, cut and polished

Orange / Blue: H34 x W26 x D14 cm

Blue / Green: H26 x W26 x D10 cm

Tesseract II

Cast glass, cut and polished

H25 x W20 x D20 cm

Light Vortex (Yellow / Pink / Blue)

Freeblown, cut and polished glass

H30 x W30 x D19 cm

Phoenix

Cast and freeblown glass, cut and polished

H32 x W25 x D25 cm

Tim Rawlinson was born in Bristol in 1985. Tim graduated in 2011 from Buckinghamshire New University with a degree in Ceramics and Glass, having previously studied Architecture at Brighton University. He exhibited his degree work that year at New Designers in London where he met Peter Layton. Peter invited Tim to do work experience at London Glassblowing, and he has since become an invaluable member of the London Glassblowing team, setting up and managing the cold studio.

Tim has created his own language in glass through cut and polished sculptural pieces that focus on the interaction between light and glass. This led to Tim’s inclusion in Europe’s most prestigious exhibition, ‘The Coburg Glass Prize’ in Germany in 2014 and the International Glass Prize at the GlazenHuis in Belgium in 2015.

Over the past few years Tim has established himself internationally as a leading glass artist. He supplies a number of major glass galleries in the US with recent showings in Florida and New York City. His work is currently in great demand internationally.